


Found the Devil In Me

by Poemsingreenink



Category: Glee
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi, Other, Violence, morally gray santana, pirate santana, rip roaring high seas adventure
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-20
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-13 22:42:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2167899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Poemsingreenink/pseuds/Poemsingreenink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Santana is a pirate who just struck a deal with Cassandra July, goddess of chaos, strife and dance. If she can keep her end of the bargain Cassandra will bring her lover Dani back to life.  This is that adventure….and all the little adventures in-between.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is my completely unbetaed AU fun project where I basically write the epic adventures of morally gray pirate Santana whenever I get a second in my stress filled life.
> 
>  **Things I do promise you:** Glee ladies doing stuff. Tagging if we get into trigger things (If you think I left a warning off just tell me). Pirate Santana sleeping around. Giant octopuses. Sword fights! Mermaids!!!!! All the mermaids!!!!!
> 
>  **Things I do not promise you:** Pairing loyalty of any kind. Santana being a nice/good person all the time. Air tight world building. Well written sex scenes (Wait, maybe I shouldn’t say that…).
> 
>  **Things I’m still up in the air about:** Crossovers? (I’m not sure how I can get Allison Argent in here, but I just might do it.) Requests? Whether or not I can make Mercedes a pirate? (She’s got that really irritating moral compass thing going for her…maybe she’s a princess.) Feel free to PM if you’ve got questions or complaints or…requests? Sure requests.

Cassandra July appeared in her bed just as the storm rolled in. Stunned, Santana dropped her after-dinner wine and the cup clattered nosily against the wooden floor of her chambers. It tried to skitter away from the mess it had made, but the ship chose that moment to roll Starboard and the cup was sent tumbling back through the mess of red alcohol until it connected with Santana’s foot.

“You could pretend to be at least a little excited,” Cassandra said. “I’d been told you preferred blondes in your bed.”

Santana swallowed hard as her mind raced. This was a situation that had to be handled delicately. Angering the goddess of chaos and dance wouldn’t do. Not with her ship bobbing along in the middle of the Angora Sea.

“Oh, I’m pleased,” Santana smirked. “But you have to understand. My lowly bed isn’t usually graced by such divine company.”

Cassandra tilted her head to the side, watching Santana the way a tiger studied a lost villager. “Good answer.” She beckoned Santana closer with a crooked finger, and in the lamp light Santana could make out the swirling shifting colors that coated the goddesses’ nails. On any other woman she would have taken them for a fancy bit of art work, but Santana knew that trapped within each of those shapely fingernails was a galaxy waiting for its time to be born.

If Tina were here she’d have 1,000 questions. Her navigator was the one with her telescope practically glued to her eye always on the lookout for an unfamiliar clutch of stars, proof that the gods had been busy. Thankfully, Tina was not here. Cassandra would have turned the girl to stardust with a glance.

Santana strode forward, trying to appear boneless and casual even as she could feel the sweat as it ran down her shoulder blades.

Thunder boomed outside, and the rain began to drum against the expensive glass window.

“I want to strike a bargain with you,” Cassandra said. She stretched her arms high into the air so that the shirt rode up her muscled stomach. “A trade.”

Laughter bubbled out from between Santana’s lips before it could be stopped. It wasn’t one of her best ideas, and Cassandra’s hand was around her throat in a blink. Santana was thrown against the wall, the tips of her boots skirting the floor. Cassandra smelled like blood and honeysuckle, and Santana could feel her pulse jump under the woman’s hand.

Santana had been in a very similar position only a few nights ago, but that woman hadn’t had the power rip her skin off.

“Don’t. Laugh. At. Me.” Cassandra said, her voice soft and dangerous.

“No disrespect,” Santana choked. “I’m a pirate. A good pirate, but I’m not stupid enough to think I’d have something a goddess would want.”

The pressure eased, and Cassandra lowered her to the floor.

“Unless,” Santana grinned. “It’s my fine ass you’re looking for.”

Cassandra’s soft white hand stayed around Santana’s throat, and her sharp watchful gaze held Santa’s attention. In her eyes Santana saw the deep yawning blackness of space untouched. The place just between clam and chaos where the air was charged with a tension that seeped into the marrow of your bones as you waited for the universe to shake.

Cassandra snorted. “Your ship is dolphin dung populated by shark chum, and yet I still need you.”

Cassandra’s hand slid down Santana’s front, resting atop her breasts.

“You’ve been unlucky in love haven’ t you, Santana?” Cassandra cooed. “One lover lost to the sea. The other one dead in the games. A heart attack wasn’t it? Such a shame. Her life snuffed out so quickly.”

Santana wanted to look away. Wanted to run. Wanted to not have this conversation with anyone let alone Cassandra July. 

“I can’t do anything about the first,” Cassandra continued. “She went of her own free will. But the second. That’s where my bargain comes in.”

Dani’s face filled Santana’s mind. The way she’d been before the games, sprawled over her naked and hot as she nuzzled Santana’s neck and coated the two of them in blue streaks for her hair dye.

“You can’t bring people back from the dead,” Santana argued. “That’s not your job.”

“No, but Carmen can. And she and I have made arrangements. You get me what I want, and she’ll let your Dani come back. Just as warm and soft and blue haired as she was when collapsed in that dusty arena.”

A shiver ran through Santana, but whether it was from hearing the Goddess of the Underworld’s name or her dead lover’s she wasn’t sure.

“What do you want?”

Cassandra smiled and showed Santana rows of bright white teeth.

“In one of the temples dedicated to Shelby there’s a priestess named Rachel. I want her. Shelby is being unreasonable and won’t let me have her.”

“Why would you want a priestess of music?” Santana should have kept her mouth shut, but the question burned too hot to be left unasked.

Cassandra shrugged. “I want a new spouse. My former one is so boring now that I’ve had my fill with him. It’s time to teach someone else to dance.”

Santana considered the offer. The rivalry between Shelby and Cassandra stretched back to the beginning of time. It would be madness to get between the two of them. Absolute madness. But some nights she still rolled over to reach for Dani only to clutch empty air, and the offer to have her back was too much. 

“Ok. Deal”

“Excellent!” Cassandra crowed.

She kissed Santana hard, and the pleasure that flooded through the pirate’s body set every nerve on fire. She moaned in the other woman’s hot, wet mouth as stars burst behind her eyes, the heat growing unbearable even as her entire body screamed with want.

When Santana fell, Cassandra made no move to catch her.

Santana woke with her clothes sticking to her skin. She was almost embarrassingly slick between her legs and her lips buzzed as though she’d eaten something spicy.

Someone was knocking hurriedly on her door.

“Captain!” Tina shouted. “The storms picked up! Captain, the….Santana just get your ass out here!”

There was a note in her left hand and a small round opal in the other.

When you have her the note read. Take to the sea. When you’ve reached its center put the stone in the fire. I’ll find you.

Santana let her head drop back to the floor as the ocean lifted them high only to drop them suddenly.

“Well, fuck.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings for this chapter:** Discussion of kidnapping and forced marriages.

“She’s a goddess,” Tina said. “Tell her to kidnap her own wife.”

Santana lifted the Bootlace Mountain Range over her head, and frowned when she found nothing hidden underneath.

“I know you’ve got no love for Shelby,” Tina continued. “After what she did to Brittany I don’t blame you, but that doesn’t give you the right to drag all of us in the middle of a some stupid god’s temper tantrum!”

Santana put the mountain range back in its proper place and then gently combed her hands through the Whispering Forest. When all she came back with was a scrapped palm she sighed and took a step back. She needed a better view for this.

“You didn’t even get anything for us out of the deal! It’s not like we can all share Dani.” Tina suddenly looked thoughtful. “Though from what I remember she might have been up for that. And when did you become someone who assisted in forced marriages? I know we’ve done questionable things-”

“Bad things,” Santana corrected. “We have done a lot of bad things. Call them what they are.”

“-but do you really think the crew is going to go for this? What about Dottie? You were against forced marriages when you put a sword through the throat of the man who tried that with her.”

“But I was for them when I dragged Lord Biff of Wherever the Hell back to shore to marry Quinn Fabry.” Santana wrapped her arms around the city of Radu and tried to wiggle it out of place. “It’s all about context, Tina.”

“It wasn’t the same thing!” Tina said.

“Exactly.” Santana grunted and released the city with a huff. “Context! Cassandra is a goddess! This priestess will be a goddess’s wife. It’ll be awesome! I’d do it if she asked me.”

“Cassandra is the priestess of dance in an age long rivalry with this woman’s patron,” Tina said flatly. “I don’t think she’ll be thrilled.”

“We don’t know that! This could be star crossed love!” Santana popped the door of a granary open and peered inside. “We’ll all have parts in the play they write someday. Or at least I will. You guys will probably be too inconsequential.”

“Santana!”

“There’s a star fish in your hair, Tina,” Santana said, squinting suspiciously at the Cat’s Paw River. She didn’t think what she was looking for would be underwater, but was too cautious to entirely rule out the possibility. She wandered over to it, and tried to slider her fingernail under the piece of dark blue glass.

“Okay stop!” Tina barked. “I told you not to mess with the pieces of the map! You’ll break it!”

Santana finally listened to her first mate and navigator. She took a step back from the gigantic table that filled almost the entire room. Across it stretched the most detailed map of the world that could be found in this life or the next. It outranked anything held by king, empress or university, and it was, so far, Tina’s most wondrous creation.

“Look,” Santana said. “Maybe one day we’ll have some of those gods who doesn’t stick their fingers into every pie they can find, but we don’t have those gods right now. I can tell you from experience that when a goddess shows up in your bed in the middle of the night you say ‘yes’ to anything she asks.”

Tina rolled her eyes. “She was hot wasn’t she?”

“She’s a goddess! Hot is in her job description! She was also terrifying.”

“You liked it.” Tina still looked unconvinced, but some of the injustice in her stance melted away. “Just tell me what you’re looking for, and I’ll find it.”

“I need to know where all the temples dedicated to Shelby are located,” Santana said.

Tina let her hand hover over the miniature building that rested snug against the shoreline. “Did that goddess fuck your brain into liquid? The temples are just like the towns. They’re all over the map. They’re all the same shape! They’re all the same color! How are you not seeing these?”

“I don’t need those temples,” Santana snapped. “I need the secret ones. The ones the public isn’t invited to know about. How are they marked?”

“Oh!” Tina said. “Yeah, that map can’t do that.”

The urge to leap across the table and throttle Tina with her bare hands was growing stronger by the minute. Santana was exhausted. The storm had kept them all from their beds and when she’d found out they were in the clear she’d come straight to the map room. Her clothes were still stiff with salt water, her lips still buzzed from Cassandra’s kiss, and she was still warm between her thighs in a way that needed some quick attention. Ten minutes by herself and she could probably rub and orgasm out and then get back to work with a clearer head, but she hadn’t even had that.

“When you made this map you said there wasn’t anything that could hide from it. That anytime something new was created or destroyed it would show up all on its own. Now you’re saying there are limitations?”

Tina shook her head. “What I told you was that it was a continual work in progress, and that nothing can hide from it for long. The map knows where the temples are, but because of the cloaking spell the high priestesses put on them it can’t reveal them. It’s got a gag order it can’t shake off. It would take a lot of power to just ram right through it so it was on my list of things to get to eventually.”

Santana swept her arm over the expanse of the map. “Well, start ramming Tina we don’t have all day.” 

“We start ramming they know I’m at the gates,” Tina said.

“Then ram gently!”

“I-I’m not using the word ram again, Santana. There are only two ways to do this. Either I sit down and try to find the back way to their spellwork which will take three maybe four months-”

“I don’t like that idea,” Santana said. “Tell me the other one.”

“Or we find someone who those temples will freely reveal themselves to.” Tina was digging her fingers through her green streaked hair, her hand coming dangerously close to crushing the bright orange starfish that had grabbed on during the storm. “Which would involve kidnapping another devout of Shelby because only their touch will work.”

Santana pulled her throwing dagger out of her belt and tossed it into the air. Catching it she started to pace. She didn’t like that idea. Kidnapping one priestess would already put them in a dicey situation. At least they had Cassandra backing them up with Rachel. Another and Shelby might start to look in their direction.

“What if I just cut off one of their hands,” she asked. “Would that work?”

“No, I tried that. You need the whole person.”

Santana tossed the knife back into the air. “Damn it.”

Glancing back to where her firstmate stood Santana took a hard look at the tiny temple she’d previously pointed out. It hugged the shoreline and was surrounded by huge towering mountains that boxed it in on all angles. That temple would be hard to reach by land, and from the look of the activity around it not all that interesting to try for with a sea voyage.

Santana caught the knife and pointed it at the tiny temple. “Exactly how small is that one?”

Surprised, Tina gave the little blue building a closer look. “This one? Really small. Like one priestess and maybe three guards small. I was shocked when the map pulled it up the first time. I didn’t think there was much in that area.”

“Small enough to slip under the notice of a very busy goddess who is also waging a war?”

Tina shrugged. “No idea.”

Santana grinned.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warnings for this chapter:** Remember those not great sex scenes I promised? Well I’m only kind of delivering.
> 
> This chapter has been rated arrrrrR.
> 
> Pairings for this chapter: Santana/Dottie

Santana set a course for the Rosehips Cove and then went on deck to take stock of her crew. The crew didn’t need much minding, they may have been pirates, but Santana didn’t have the energy it would take to handle a bi-weekly mutiny so she chose her people carefully. Still, a daily walk about to show that she was never far away was always a good idea.

She was happy to see the deck being scrubbed, and that several of the crew members were fishing for that night’s dinner off the side of the ship. A few of her people were high above her head checking on the wood that kept the masts in one piece. Tomorrow she’d have them check the sails. The Mermaid’s Song was one of the fastest ships on the high seas, but holes in the sails and they were dead in the water.

The walkabout was over quickly, but she knew that it was well past time to deal with the problem Cassandra had left behind. She could feel the wet pooling in her underpants, and her pussy was so warm it felt as though she were holding a tiny sun between her thighs.

She found her favorite distraction in the hold. Dottie was carefully dipping her tattooing needle into a bottle of black ink. Beiste’s arm was in her lap, and Dottie carefully began to touch up the thrashing squid tentacles that wrapped securely around Beiste’s arm. The well-muscled woman nodded her greeting to Santana, rows of silver earrings winking in the dim sunlight that streamed in through the porthole.

“Captain Lopez.”

Hearing the captain’s name, Dottie tipped her head back and blinked at her from behind gold rimmed glasses. Glasses that Santana knew had once rested on the nose of a brigadier before Dottie had liberated them for herself.

“Captain Lopez,” Dottie said perkily. “Come to get some ink?”

“You are the only one who knows what I like,” Santana said.

Beiste snorted. “I think I’ll go see how dinner’s coming along. We good here, kid?”

Dottie nodded. “Yep. You remember how to take care of it?”

Beiste’s knees cracked as she stood and the conch shell that dangled from her belt bounced against her broad thigh. “Yeah, pumpkin. I got it. You two have fun.”

Santana leaned against one of the heavy crates. “She knows me so well.”

Dottie had come aboard yapping at Tina’s heels like an excited puppy. It had taken her a few months, but eventually Dottie had decided that while being Tina’s personal slave was ridiculous, being a pirate was fantastic. She reminded Santana of a hummingbird; tiny, fluttery and full of nervous energy. She and Dottie had started fucking because Dani had a thing for tattoos and occasionally liked a third party in their bed.

“Can I map all of your pretty tattoos, Cabin Girl,” Santana asked as she stretched out her arm.

Dottie happily bounced over to her. Santana wrapped her arm around the smaller girl’s waist and pulled her closer. She nuzzled the soft flesh of Dottie’s neck pausing when she found the small green and yellow warbler tattooed at her pulse point. Then she nipped it hard which made Dottie wiggle and hum happily.

Dottie untucked Santana’s shirt and slid her hands up the other woman’s hard stomach. She blinked at the captain coyly.

Dottie, much like Santana, preferred skirts. Unfortunately, Santana had found that as much as she enjoyed the swish of a skirt over her legs movement was more important, and had made the switch to pants not long after running away to sea. Dottie had never made that move, something Santana was incredibly grateful for when she rucked the strips of cotton and leather up to Dottie’s hips and pulled the waistband of her panties down.

“Here or are you going to want a bed?” Santana asked.

“Bed,” Dottie insisted.

Santana rolled her eyes. “Knew you’d be a princess about it.”

Dottie pulled away maneuvering Santana along as they walked further into the dark. “But yours is too far. We’ll use mine.”

The crew was large enough that most of them slept three, sometimes four, to a room (and sometimes for fun two to a bed), but the sleeping hall was mostly empty. Dottie’s roommates were working on deck, and even if they hadn’t been they’d have gone running at the sight of their captain entering the room sans shirt, fingers already working at untying her breast band.

“Let me,” Dottie insisted.

She unhooked the back of the wrapped cloth and tugged at the long strips until Santana turned. Dottie reached over to gently touch Santana’s naked left breast. Just above the nipple. “I want to put the next one here.”

Santana grabbed Dottie around the waist and kiss her hard.

Every tattoo Santana had came from Dottie. Dottie liked to leave her mark, and Santana liked the tattoos. There was a blonde mermaid swimming up the length of her forearm, and an eye that looked to be wearing heavy liner on her upper shoulder. A school of sharks with grinning sharp teeth circled her left leg, a small pair of dance slippers was at the top of her right foot and a guitar on her right bicep. Whatever Dottie wanted to put next she didn’t much care.

The heat was spreading out to fill Santana’s entire body. Sweat was dripping down her forehead as she pushed her tongue into Dottie’s mouth, and she could feel the lips of her pussy were swelling.

She walked backwards tugging Dottie until she felt the backs of her knees hit the bedframe. She carefully lowered herself onto the quilt, releasing Dottie so the other woman could wiggle out of her top and skirt. Santana started unlacing her pants only to be stopped by a gloriously naked Dottie.

“I want to,” she insisted.

Santana smirked, leaned back and left Dottie to it. “Who doesn’t?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Violence because there's a FIGHT SCENE! PREPARE FOR THE FIGHT SCENE!

The Rosehips Cove was a small coastal village, identical to all the other small coastal villages Santana had visited. Most of its residents were gone already, out at sea fishing in their small boats and those left at the docks were mending nets or preparing ships that had been too damaged to sail for the day.

One old woman spat into the sea when she saw Santana, Tina and Bieste tromping toward the town, but no comment followed, only a steady watchfulness as they passed. Santana ignored her in favor of leaving a handful of coins at the tiny alter dedicated to the fickle sea goddess Sue Sylvester. 

Further inland the tiny town came equipped of all the familiar trappings; bakery, blacksmith, candle stick maker, rope maker, and a tavern. A few men and women too old or young to go to sea wandered about the town, but it wasn’t a market day so the town was quite. Only the steady clang of the blacksmith’s hammering shot through the early morning air.

Tina was looking at the loaves of freshly baked bread in the bakery shop window with interest her nose taking in the sweet smell, and Bieste was eyeing up some of the more expensive pieces the blacksmith was hanging up.

“Do whatever you want until mid-day,” Santana ordered. “You know where I want you to be, and by when. I’m getting some breakfast.”

Neither of them followed her into the tavern. A plump little man nervously served her ale, fish stew and a hunk of dark brown bread. She avoided the ale. She needed a clear head for the next couple of days. She could drink herself blind once she had Dani back. Instead she was content to rip the bread into hunks and lazily drag it through the soup.

Dani had hated fish stew. An unfortunate dietary preference since being the lover of a pirate meant a meant an unfortunate menu of fish stew most nights. Santana had never needed to shower Dani in jewels or baubles (Though gods knows she’d done it anyway. Dani’s blue hair had made her look like a sea god’s wife when she laid stolen crowns covered in diamonds atop her head. She’d delighted in seeing diamond earrings winking in her ears like stars and sapphires on her fingers.). Her lover’s heart had been located firmly in her stomach. Santana had become a pro at breaking into kitchens where the finest chefs prepared meals their high-up guests never got the chance to taste. The challenge had been getting them back to Dani still warm, but after the first two disasters she’d solved that by bringing Dani with her. Crime was always more fun with a partner.

Santana wanted to cry. The ache she was usually so good at avoiding filled her chest. She beat it back viciously, she’d cried so much already, and she refused to do it into a bowl of fish stew from a backwater harbor town. Now when there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

Reaching into her belt pouch, Santana pulled Cassandra’s opal out for inspection. It was as large and heavy as a hen’s egg, and a rainbow of colors skipped across its surface. Maybe Cassandra would let her keep it when all was said and done. She’d give it to Dani. Let her spend it or wear it or whatever she wanted.

 

“Oh! How exquisite.”

Santana’s hand quickly closed around the jewel as her other went to her dagger. She looked into the blue eyes of a tall young man with a friendly smile. He was dressed in plain, but in expensive looking cloth and leather. Two sai swords hung from his belt and there was a sword strapped to his back.

“A precious white opal,” he commented nodding towards Santana’s closed fist. “You don’t see many of those around.”

“It’s not for sale,” Santana snapped. “Move along.”

The smile didn’t leave the man’s face, but he held a hand up to placate her. It was a move her father had often made, and to this day it made Santana’s teeth grind.

“I was only admiring it. I meant no disrespect.”

Santana slid the opal back into the pouch. “We’ll you’ve admired it long enough fancy pants.”

The other man shrugged and moved towards the bar. As he ordered Santana felt the back of her neck prickle. She sighed. Better to meet an opponent head on than to let him skulk in the shadows. She had a deadline to keep after all.

“Hey blue eyes,” she called not bothering to turn around. “If you’re going to stare, and it’s understandable that you’d want to, why don’t you just join me?”

“You’re not really my type,” he shot back.

Santana dunked another chunk of the bread into the rapidly disappearing soup. “Good. You’re not mine either.”

Her eyes may have been on her food, but her ears latched onto the soft padding of his boots against the rough stone floor as he moved. This one was light on his feet, but not quite as panther pawed as he probably believed.

He circled her and pulled the empty chair across from Santana away from the table, the legs scrapping across the stone. “My eyes also aren’t blue. They’re actually a color I refer to as glaze.”

“I already regret this invitation,” Santana said dryly.

The plump tavern owner delivered the same meal Santana had ordered in front of the stranger, and he picked the spoon up to stir the steaming soup. 

“So what are you?” Santana asked around a mouthful of stew. “Jewel thief?”

“I’m Kurt,” he responded.

“Kurt the jewel thief.”

“I am not a jewel thief,” Kurt protested.

Now out of bread, Santana picked her spoon up and slurped her way through another mouthful. “Only jewelers and jewel thieves try the old ‘I was just admiring your big shiny rock’ routine. Other people are too cautious to just point out riches like that.”

“Maybe I’m a jeweler,” Kurt said. He lazily leaned back in his chair, one foot braced against the edge of the table.

“Jewelers don’t wear pants that tight.”

“Know a lot of jewelers?”

“Nope. Just a lot of jewel thieves.”

Kurt chuckled and shook his head. He tipped his head thoughtfully. “Well, you’re wrong.”

Santana saw the muscle in Kurt’s thigh twitch just before he threw his full weight into his foot, shoving the table towards her. It would have connected hard with her stomach, but she rolled to the side as the table slid across the floor and her chair crashed to the ground.

“I’m not a jewel thief,” Kurt said advancing toward her drawing his sais. “But I do need that jewel.” 

Santana smirked. “Let me guess. Context, right?”

Kurt attacked.

Santana flicked her dagger, but it sailed high grazing Kurt’s shoulder instead of sinking into the sinew. It did slow him down enough for Santana to draw her sword and parry his attack, her sword blocking the swipe he made at her side. The clang of their weapons meeting had the tavern staff running for the door.

 _Good_. Santana thought as she brought her sword down for a head blow only to have it blocked. _More room to move_.

The great thing about fighting someone with sai swords was that there was no edge to worry about. It wasn’t like fighting an opponent with a sword or blade. This would be thief would have to disarm her or run her clean through before she’d stop fighting, and she’d been fighting long enough that she knew how to make that hard.

“Bad choice of weapon,” Santana teased. “Just because it’s pretty doesn’t mean we should reach for it first.”

The pale man blushed scarlet and swung his left sai for her. Santana parried again and the two opponents broke away to circle one another. Santana hadn’t been lying when she’d mocked the weapon. Sais were not the most practical of choices. They were good if you didn’t want to draw blood, but it took mastering the weapon to make them deadly, and those masters were few and far between. Or at least Santana had never met one, and she certainly wasn’t facing one now.

 _He’s green._ Her mind supplied as she rushed him. _He knows the katas and he’s got the muscle for it, but he’s green as fresh spring grass._

Kurt’s sais caught Santana’s sword between their prongs. She grunted, twisting her body and yanking her weapon free as she danced away.

 _And you’re a sloppy veteran,_ she chided. _Abulea would have your ears for that mistake._

Kurt’s grin at her fault lasted only until Santana attacked again. She swung the sword low aiming for his feet, and Kurt leapt away just barely recovering in time to block with the left sai as she lunged for his solar plexus. His right arm sailed high, the sai in his clutched hand aiming for her head, but Santana ducked and kicked his feet out from under him.

There was no recovery of balance this time, and Kurt’s right arm connected awkwardly with a chair on his way down. He landed on the hard floor with a pained oomph and the right sai went skittering across the floor. Santana quickly slammed her foot onto his left wrist, and when his fingers loosened she kicked the remaining weapon away.

“End of the line blue eyes,” she said.

“I told you,” Kurt coughed. “They’re glaz-“

Santana brought the hilt of her sword down hard on the man’s temple.

****

 

“I could turn him into something,” Tina offered. “A frog or maybe a goldfish. I’ve got a spell that will turn people into armadillos that I haven’t tried yet. Are you looking for a pet?”

Santana stepped back from her project and wiped the sweat away from her forehead.

“I’m not.”

When Santana had dragged Kurt’s unconscious form into the surrounding woods she’d noticed that the town had gone from quiet to eerily silent. Bieste and Tina had been waiting outside the tavern with weapons drawn, and Santana had felt like screaming. This was attention she had not wanted.

Her temper was simmering still, and she gave Kurt a shove to make herself feel better. She had him strung up by the wrists, dangling from a large thick tree branch, the tips of his boots just barely scrapping the ground. They were far enough away from the town that its residents wouldn’t hear much, and even if they could Santana wasn’t all that certain they’d venture out to play hero.

“Bieste,” Santana called. “Have anything for me?”

The larger woman was leaning against a far tree and studying the sais, sword, pouch and dagger they’d stripped from the man.

Bieste shook her head. “There are hippos stamped into the leather, but if that’s a family crest it’s not one I recognize. The weapons are well made, good material, and he had some coins and a few sapphires in his pouch, but not much else.” 

“He’s waking up,” Tina said.

“Oh good,” Santana said. She fixed her hat so that it lay in a more comfortable position on her head. “Morning, Blue Eyes. Sleep well?”

Kurt’s face was full of confusion for a moment, but it quickly twisted into a scowl. His feet kicked out, aiming for Santana’s face, but they fell shy of their mark by centimeters.

“You act like this is the first time I’ve done this,” Santana chuckled. “Now why don’t you be good, and tell Aunty Tana what you thought you were doing back there?”

“I need that opal,” Kurt said.

“I need a cold glass of chilled wine served to me by a beautiful woman with a tongue piercing,” Santana hooted. “But I don’t see it happening right now.”

“No, you don’t understand.” Some of the anger seeped from Kurt’s voice to be replaced by desperation. “I need it.”

“You already have a few shiny pieces of your own.” Santana flipped her palm up and Bieste dumped three sapphires into her palm. “Well, I mean you had them. These are now also mine.”

“You can have those,” Kurt begged. “You can have anything I have, and I can find you more sapphires if you want them. I can get you any jewel; emeralds, rubies, diamonds, tanzanites. I can get them to you if you just trade me for your opal.”

Santana blinked. “I don’t believe you. Most people who actually have stores of rare jewels at their fingertips try trading first, and force second.”

“I’m sorry I attacked you, but I’m desperate,” Kurt said. “I need a god touched stone. It’s important. You don’t understand. It’s not for me. It’s not to sell. I need it to-“

“No,” Santana snapped. “Absolutely not. You do not tell me your sorry sob story. I do not have time for your sorry sob story. I don’t care if you need it to cure your sick village from Weasel Pox, buy your father out of a life as a Baranese sex slave or rescue your one true love from evil. I do not care. Because right now, I am trapped in the middle of my own sob story, and I will not deal with yours until mine wraps up.” Santana tilted the sapphires so that the jewels caught the light of the sun. “Coincidentally, wrapping mine up involves holding on to my opal. Go find another stone.”

Kurt laughed. “You think god-touched stones are just lying all over the road? I’ve been searching for almost a year now and yours is the first I’ve found. Please-?

“No.”

“How did you know it was god touched?” Tina asked, curiously.

“It hums,” Kurt explained. “I can hear it. Even right now, it’s calling to me.”

Tina peered at him curiously. “I can’t hear anything. How are you able to hear it humming?”

“No one cares, Tina,” Santana sapped. She pocketed the jewels. “Come on. It’s time we left.”

“This isn’t over,” Kurt promised, his eyes dark. “No matter where you go, I will follow you until you hand over that opal.”

Quick as a snake Santana turned dagger drawn. She slashed across the man’s cheek and the blood that bloomed on his face was thick and red as rubies.

“Fine,” she said. “But the next time I see you that cut goes across your throat.” She turned marching towards the town. “Remember that I warned you.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: Well, this is the part where Santana goes back in time to make sure both of her parents go to the Enchantment Under The Sea dance together so that she and her siblings will all be born and…wait no that’s Back To The Future. But we do jump back in time in this bit.

 

* * *

 

**_Two Years Ago_ **

“For the sake of full disclosure,” Santana panted as they raced down one of the winding streets in the city of Radu. “You should know that my name isn’t Esperanza. I’ve never owned a quaint tea shop off the coast of Kay-Lin, I’ve never killed a man just to watch him die and this,” She gestured to her tangled golden locks. “This is a wig.”

Dani gaped at her. “Wh- _what_?!”

Santana reached for the wig forgetting that there were still a few inches of chain hanging from her wrist cuff. The metal links banged into her nose. “Gods damn it!”

Dani grabbed Santana by the shoulder and practically threw her down the next alleyway.

“Left!” Dani barked.

“Is your hair a wig by any chance?” Santana asked wiping the tears out of her eyes.

“No,” Dani growled.

“Funny, those roots don’t look the color of a wheat field.”

“I didn’t say the color was real,” Dani said.

The alleyway ended with the appearance of a bridge that arched over one of Radu’s famous canals. Dani’s left ankle cuff still had a few inches of chain on it, and as they pounded over the arched wooden structure some of it dropped between the planks and caught. Dani cried as out as she toppled forward, landing hard on her knees.

“Hang on, hang on,” Santana said. She crouched beside her, and began to wrestle the chain free. “Gods we have to get out of these.”

“Tell me your name,” Dani said.

“Lopez,” Santana said. “Captain Santana Lopez.” She waited for a reaction, and when Dani gave her none she pouted a little. “You haven’t heard of me?”

Dani stood, inspecting her knees which were scraped and bloodied. “Nope.”

“I’m a pirate captain,” Santana said. She moved to toss her hair, and then remembered most of it was still pinned to her scalp.

“Is that why you were in the chain gang?” Dani asked.

“No.”

“Then why were you in prison?”

Santana grinned. “The stunning female companionship.”

Dani sighed. “Let’s keep running. We’re almost there.”

Santana followed her off the bridge. “Almost where?”

On the other side of the canal was a tall fence that Dani scaled like a squirrel. Santana followed at a slower pace, clumsily pulling herself over the top and then falling onto the hard packed dirt that waited below.

She took a deep breath and promptly gagged.

“Horses,” Santana groaned. “You took me to horses.”

“That’s because horses are awesome,” Dani said happily.

It was late afternoon, and the stables were empty. Dani led Santana across the courtyard and into an smithy where the forge was cold and empty. Tools hung from the walls, and Dani grabbed a pair of long pliers before laying her wrist atop the cold anvil. She slid one of the long edges under the metal cuff and began to twist.

“Shoddy workmanship,” Dani muttered as the metal bent. She got the remaining cuffs of her wrist and ankles before motioning for Santana.

“You’re next. Move it. If they aren’t searching for us yet I’ll eat a hat.”

Santana’s chains joined Dani’s on the ground. Dani gathered the pieces together, and disappeared further into the smithy. She returned with a large leather bag, and she moved along the walls grabbing tools as she went.

“You know your way around a smithy,” Santana said. She studied the angry red chaffing around her wrists with a bubbling fury. She wished that escape had included a few guard’s slit throats.

“Only this one,” Dani said. “This one was mine before they caught me.”

“Caught you what?”

“Organizing.” Dani shrugged. “I thought the workers around here should get paid more. The noble in charge disagreed. Do you know how to ride?”

Santana nodded. “Yes, and I may have lied about pretty much everything else, but I was telling the truth when I said that if you could get me to the coast there was a ship waiting.”

“Bet it’s a slave ship,” Dani said dryly.

Santana laughed. “You know. It’s funny you say that, my ship was-“

Dani thrust her bag into Santana’s arms and steered her in the direction of the overpowering horse smell.

“Tell me on the way. I bet it’s thrilling.”

“You have no idea.”

 


End file.
